On the Eve of My Ex-Husband’s Second Departure

1. When I was 40-years-old a psychic told me that Mark, my husband of 9-years would leave me, but that he would come back.

2. This wasn’t a total shock because we’d talked about separating a lot over the years and sometimes the idea of not being together sounded good. Sometimes we even joked about it, playing games like “let’s imagine our lives without one another.”

3. It was never mean. We’d talk about the adventures and the new loves we’d have without one another. It helped us blow off steam and bring a little humor to monogamy and the routine of domestic life; our adorable kids, the cooking, the cleaning, the pressure to make a heap of money.

4. The thing was, our marriage was often challenging – from the start – and I could tell you why, but it’s impossible to reduce two people’s issues down to a few short phrases, especially when they’ve been together nearly 30-years.

5. I could say, “it was the sex,” or “it was the money,” but that wouldn’t tell you anything, and that’s just short hand for “we weren’t happy,” or “we didn’t bring the best out of one another,” or “marriage isn’t sexy.”

6. I could tell you that it’s because we were so different, how one time a visitor to our house turned to me and asked, “why are you two together?” Like it was obviously a mismatch.

7. Mark came from cornfields and haystacks. His parents were in the Mayflower Society. They sang in the church choir and went sledding on the weekends. His mother knew how to knit. His father fished and worked with wood. At night they played pinochle.

8. I learned to drive in rush hour traffic on Wilshire Blvd in L.A. I came from Jews with money, and was in therapy by the time I was 5. Martinis, cigarettes, the country club…on any given night the dinner table could turn into a therapy session with one of us in the hot seat.

9. If Mark and I were anything together for 30 years, we were artists. We’d have whole conversations about lines and shadows or all the different greens we could see. We nudged each other in movies when a good song came on. We lived for the music. On road trips, our eyes fastened to the road in front of us, we could talk about anything; the world, other people, our parents. When we faced each other we’d have more problems. I want to explain this better, but I’m not sure how.

10. And I don’t want to. I don’t want to explain anything. I want to tell you that Mark did leave once, four years ago when we first separated, after 23-years of marriage, just like the palm reader said, and that he moved back in a year and a half ago after our divorce was final, because he needed a place to land for a bit – just like the palm reader said he would.

11. He said he’d be here for weeks. I’m more practical. I said a couple of months, until he found a real home.

12. Weeks and months turned into a year and a half.

13. It turned out that taking sex and money off the table left us with the core of who we always were: friends. Very good friends.

14. And shape shifters. We were really good at changing, trying to keep the essence of our connection and let the form change.

15. Because everything changes.

16. And that’s risky sometimes, charting a path for ourselves that we made up, and that sometimes made other people uncomfortable, like opening our marriage up to lovers in our 16th year together, then separating and coming back together. And that in some way, even though he’s leaving again now, I admire us, this ability to change yet again.

17. And that even as I grieve his departure, feeling that this departure is different and is the end of something bigger, I’m excited for my next chapter in this beautiful home by myself.

18. Excited and practical too, making lists of the things he’s taking and that I’ll have to replace; the espresso machine, the electric toothbrush, a wall of paintings, bowls and mugs, and some light.

19. Because if Mark brought anything, he brought the light.

20. Which is what that fortune teller told Mark one year when Mark was at Burning Man. The seer on the playa told him, “never leave her, you’re her light and she’s your rudder.”

21. I feel like I’m writing a eulogy, I’m not. I’m appreciating this man who brought the light and also thinking about my own light and where that lives in me and how I’m going to go after that light.

22. You’ll have to ask Mark about that rudder business, but I think he’s going to be okay.

23. About a minute ago I read him this list because I often read him my writing, and he laughed, and before he took off he gave me a kiss and said he’d see me soon.

24. And he will.

25. Did I mention that Mark is one of the 27 Powers?

26. And I am too.

27. For sure.

54 Comments

Mary Orr
on February 9, 2016 at 9:55 pm

Writing about complex experiences is your strong suit, Laurie. There’s both a gentleness and fierceness in your honesty. The way you both honor and nurture your creative lives despite the emotional cost is amazing. Thanks for sharing the mystery here with us, your friends, supporters and admirers.

Oh Laurie….this is beautiful. Your words are like chocolate magic, melting in my mouth and in my heart. Love of the highest order. Love underneath the story and the differences. Love that seems to change, and does indeed change on he outside – but never on the inside. Thank you.

Crying, and I don’t really know why. Could be for you and Mark, probably more for myself and my ex, but it’s at least in part for all the different greens. I love your the way your writing never simplifies anything. You bring your own light, always. Here it is again shining from the page.

You have so much courage, Laurie. If the rest of us had one tenth the courage you guys have, we would be more honest, more creative and the world would be a better place. Thanks for showing us what’s possible.
Love you,
Xxoo

I love this Laurie Wagner. I love that you two have been traveling some beautiful relationship road together for so long and letting it breathe with all of its changes. Thanks for living it and thanks for writing it!

I think like Nan, I’m crying more for myself and my X than for you and Mark because you two are so solid. So strong. There is nothing about this moment that feels sad, actually, but simply “gently discovered.” And maybe that’s it, that you were able to shift from one way of being to another so smoothly. And, of course, there are a million details you aren’t sharing and many hard days and nights, but this ending/beginning is so brilliant and so brave. So many of us are wistfully wishing for a partnership that feels like this. Big love to you and Mark and the light both of you bring to the world.

I am moved. First by your words. And now by the words of those in your community. Holding, and so sweetly reflecting back … the light, the love … & sounds like the rudder too, that you’ve been sprinkling on & among them over so many years.
Your writing makes a difference in my heart & life too.
Shine on, rudder on, sista!
xoxo

I am crying, too. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m crying because over the years, even though I met him only once, I felt that light you speak of, mostly through your writing, and there is probably a piece of the “I believe in fairy tales” me that hoped this new form you two created would morph back into always and forever. Yes, that. I am an always and forever gal … to a fault. I think I might have inherited that from my dad. And now, I get to watch you shine brighter in your own light. Thank you for your gift of telling true stories.

Oh. god, You bring it so honestly and so nakedly.. moving, scary and inspiring, brutal and tender..feeling the tension of loss and freedom…of life. Thanks for the reminder.. this is what it means to be alive, if we are present to ourselves and others.

as life her in the middle, shifts and changes i have often thought about your story. and then this morn i wake up here. how love can and is defined in so many ways. that even though others may be uncomfortable with the way your story unfolds and told, it is yours. so often the fear of not being lovable or this written undertone of “why cant we make this work” pushes us in a direction that is so unneeded and doesnt nuture the goodness that can always remain.

I like how you don’t pretend you can ever “go home” again but what is so special is the “new home” that your relationship morphs into over time and the acceptance of that. I think we all wish we could have the beauty of time together with someone to re-do a breakup in a way that potentially nurtures both people. For me, that’s the gift here. Keep shining Luv!

A really tender and soulful piece. Just lovely. A blend of hope, hurt, melancholy, love, and promise. Like so many relationships that we want to keep but know must change. Good luck to you and Mark, dwellers on the threshold.

You are a truly good writer, who spills on to a page with respect but without restraint. Thank you. This stirred many feelings, as most of your writing does.
Carry on, and know that there is plenty of light. Lots and lots of light. You often gave yours away thinking someone else needed it, when in reality the coyote was hording his in a sack out of fear. You are the rudder, and he is lucky you haven’t clocked him with it to the moon and back.

1. Feeling ever more (dis)connected in this wired world, I rub as gold coins stories that engender intimacy and knowing. In the barrage of election year promises, I value candor and frankness.
2. I’ve lived long enough I know loss.
3. You invite me to touch loss. Yours. Mine. You run my fingers over its rough edges. You let me look at it, into it, and see the shining.
4. Truth rattles in your words. I hear its raspy clunk. You tell me you could tell me more. And you don’t want to. Rattle, clunk.
5. You give me the dish on your relationship, I look up, embarrassed to be caught licking the plate. To recognize my own faltering attempts at loving.
6. Lines and shadows limn the portrait you fashion, make it pop. There are 50 shades of green and growing.
7. There are tears.
8. And laughter.
9. Gutsy self-confidence.
10. And love. Rattle, rattle, clunk.

Laurie you take words and tell the truth, raw and tender, real and enlightening. You have this ability to go into the corners other writers miss and come back and place on the table everything that screams of complexity, of dis-comfort, of not knowing or being sure of how this thing called relationships works. Your words allow me to recognise that I am not on my own. That the situation I thought was all mine is also shared by you and others. How bloody marvellous is that. We can be thousand of miles apart but we live and breathe the same stories, the same god dam awful challenges. We are recipients of the beauty that dove tail our sorrows. And when we sit with the messy truth, everyone, everyone wins. Would appreciate you getting another book out into the world so I could have your words all in one place please! Jackee

Apparently I am not alone in the tears over this. Thought it is not sadness although there is a bittersweetness to it. Rather it is like watching the end of Before Sunrise. Where we visit the places you’ve walked together and see them in the morning light. That feeling of something beautiful passed this way and the place and people are forever altered. It is an end and a beginning. I love that the evolution of you both together and apart brought you somewhere still so loving and true. 27 Powers is the stage and there is set change. I love that we get to sit in that yard and around that table to bear witness. Beautiful Laurie! XO

A friend of mine once told me that only 3% of couples who divorce stay friends. He is one of them and you are too! That’s saying somethin’!
Good for you for hanging in there and being friends. I think that’s what
it’s all about and it’s very fortunate for the both of you and your children.
(I think?) Afterall, I don’t really know what it’s like at home, but I have
to assume it’s not too bad or he wouldn’t have stayed all these years.

I had to read this twice at the risk of being late to work, which I was.
It was worth it!
I loved every single word in this piece. I wish I could read something like this every day.
Thank you dear Laurie for artistry with words, your wit, your humor, your wisdom and of course your own remarkable light which shines quite brightly.

Not alone in the tear department. Read this after days of clearing out the home I shared with the ex — children, love, pain and growth. Loss and grief. Your courage, L, is a beacon; helping me navigate distressing waters, and a shining light to another shore. Thank you.

Dear Laurie,
Seems many people love, appreciate and respect you. There’s an old saying, ‘It takes one to know one.’ Please consider, like Dorothy and the Ruby Slippers, you have the light inside you already. You always have. Breathe THAT in. Perhaps its time to click those heels, walk into your bathroom and really look at your own reflection. This time, stand there, close your eyes, ask to see that light and be that light.. and live in more joy. click those heals. Live THAT truth. Life and people, its all a MIRROR for you.. If you can see it in someone else – you’ve got it inside of you… good, bad, ugly, stunningly beautiful.. its all there. Welcome to your new life, Happy Birthday New Year.

Read it and weep comes to mind. And I did read it and then re-read it. Life comes out of the cracks. When I think of you two, together or apart through all the years I have known you, you are my rocks, in subtle ways, so delicate or precise as to be difficult to analyze or describe. I don’t know if I have ever told you that. Mark for his magic and you for your weaving of words and soul. Thank you

Laurie-loo. I’m late to the game reading this, and it is as exquisite and tender and beautiful and wise and fleshy and true and deep and good as your writing always is. There are million lists of words I’d like to make here, ticking off the reasons why this kind of story needs telling, and how you have always been a light that shows us how to do it. But maybe it just comes down to these two words to say it all: Thank you.

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